[KaiserJeep]

How would YOU feel if:

1) The oil peak happened? Well, in a sense it did, somewhere in the range of 2005-2009 conventional well production peaked, depending upon whose figures you favor. Unconventional oil sources are making up the difference, but we know those cannot last forever either.

2) Anthropogenic Global Warming happened, and the feedback mechanisms of the planet kicked in, and moderated the effects? This would appear to have happened as well, there is no other reasonable interpretation of the available temperature data. We will marinate in a warmer Earth for a while, the interglacial may be extended or it may end prematurely, sea level rise will hasten, Temperate climate zones will go Northwards, but overall after a period of a few thousand years, there is nothing much gonna result from burning fossil fuels other than something best described as "discomfort" in the Tropics.

3) The Sixth Global Extinction "event" (which began around 1800) continues for another few hundred - or thousands - of years and the environment is increasingly dirtier, less attractive, and incrementally harder to survive in? That appears to be happening, and one can easily predict a future where only humans and their animal and plant food species exist. What a dull and unattractive world that will be, when natural diversity will be replaced by GMO's, species created for supporting an increasingly unsteady environment.

4) What if financial conniptions happen, as they already have happened many times, and yet food is still available and people continue to survive? Most people were not even depressed during the Great Depression of the 1930s, we know - in fact they had a cultural Renaissance of sorts, with all those idle people doing creative things.

5) What if a limited nuclear war happened, millions of people were killed, and tens of thousands of hectares of land were contaminated by fallout? What if they consumed food and water which contained radioactive isotopes? What if they even created a unique wine which was mildly radioactive, such as that from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (yes, it exists, and it is relished by some)?

No, I'm not going to debate any of these topics with you. If you have been a member for very long, we both already know where we agree and where we disagree about such popular topics. I just wanted to plant a seed in your head.

What if any or even all of these things happened, and TEOTWAWKI did not happen? What if Doom never came, for any of us, or at most, these various Dooms, and any others you can think of, had an insignificant impact on the human species?

What if Chaos Theory rules reality, in spite of the self-obsessions of Homo Sapiens Sapiens?

I will only say that IMHO that is the most likely scenario, and I can tolerate the thought just fine. I am in stage 5:

1. Denial and isolation;
2. Anger;
3. Bargaining;
4. Depression;
5. Acceptance.

You did your part by reading this far. The seed will grow, and you will be healthier and happier as it grows. Don't go the way Michael Ruppert went, he never was happy as far as I can tell. Don't get overly invested in any form of Doom.

[ennui2]

I thought you were hitching your hopes on a rocket ride to another planet like Mars?

Sounds like bargaining to me.

[Plantagenet]

Anthropogenic Global Warming happened, and the feedback mechanisms of the planet kicked in, and moderated the effects? This would appear to have happened as well, there is no other reasonable interpretation of the available temperature data.

Actually, no.

The amount of global warming we are seeing is actually right in the range of warming predicted by most GCMs. And things are happening that weren't widely foreseen, like the Arctic ocean sea ice melting so quickly and the increased amplitude of high latitude Rossby waves in the atmosphere and the amazing blob of very warm ocean in the NE Pacific. You'd have to say global warming is proceeding much as predicted, and if anything is tracking along towards the upper range of GCM predictions, complete with some weird things happening that are consistent with global warming.


2015-16 temps are the all-time record, with T running about 1.3°C warmer then the 1880 baseline---quite comparable to GCM projections of global warming. And up here in Alaska 2016 has seen a big jump in just one year. This year so far is running over 1.5°C warmer than any previous year in the instrumental record. Again, much more warming and much quicker warming is happening at higher latitudes --- just as predicted.

[KaiserJeep]

Keep it up, Doomies. I never expected to convert you all with one thread. I just wanted to plant a seed in your psyche, and I did so.

Nor did I ever say I personally believed in AGW. All I said was that none of the useless climate models accounted for actual temperatures. I do believe that climate is a natural phenomenon, and human-induced changes are insignificant.

My belief that we should colonize space is a due to some forms of doom I do believe in, including apocalyptic level nuclear wars and giant comet/asteroid impacts on the planet, not to mention mega-volcanoes.

Overall, I don't think any form of doom is likely for hundreds or thousands of years. During that period, the greatest impact on humans will arise from the end of cheap fossil fuels availability - the central theme of PO.com.

There, after planting the seed in your mind, I just figuratively urinated on it, to encourage it to grow.

[onlooker]

Nice try but I am not biting. What I am seeing is a continuous deterioration in all these factors you mentioned. I think the other side of the coin of obsession with doom is a reluctance to contemplate it honestly and directly. The latter is much more common than the former. Call it a natural defense mechanism we possess. It is NOT obsessing with doom to evaluate objectively the prospects of our species and to consequentially deem our prospects as quite disturbing and poor. It is the undeniable product of the data and reasonable inferences reached from said data

[onlooker]

"Confronted with the tightening vise between accelerating resource depletion and accelerating biosphere disruption, the vast majority of people in the industrial world seem content to insist that they can have their planet and eat it too. The conventional wisdom holds that someone, somewhere, will think of something that will allow us to replace Earth’s rapidly emptying fuel tanks and resource stocks, on the one hand, and stabilize its increasingly violent climatic and ecological cycles, on the other. That blind faith remains welded in place even as decade after decade slips past, one supposed solution after another fails, and the stark warnings of forty years ago have become the front page news stories of today. Nothing is changing, except that the news just keeps getting worse.

"That’s the simple reality of the predicament in which we find ourselves today. Our way of life, here in the world’s industrial nations, guarantees that in the fairly near future, no one anywhere on the planet will be able to live the way we do. As resources run out, alternatives fail, and the destructive impacts of climate change pile up, our ability to influence geological processes will go away, and leave us once more on the receiving end of natural cycles we can do little to change."

John Michael Greer

[KaiserJeep]

Words of wisdom from somebody who calls himself the "Arch Druid"?

....what planet do you hail from?

By the way, how does Greer intend to change "geological processes"? Human sacrifice on the altar at Stonehenge, perhaps?

[onlooker]

Kaiser, that I know of nobody is offering viable solutions to humanities predicaments. Also, demeaning Greer is not so effective considering how articulate his writings are

[SumYunGai]

Wow, I feel kind of conflicted here.

On the one hand, I agree with KaiserJeep that John Michael Greer is more than somewhat suspect. Before he started writing about slow collapse, he made his living writing astrology and numerology books. I won't go further here, but if anyone is interested, here is my formal critique of the Green Wizard and his catabolic collapse "theory":

http://futilitist.blogspot.com/2012/09/ ... eal_1.html

But, on the other hand, onlooker is correct that Greer is articulate. In fact, he is quite the wordsmith. Though most of his long winded ramblings aren't really worth reading, he is nonetheless occasionally capable of making a succinct statement with which I can fully agree. Onlooker managed to find such a statement.

[KaiserJeep]

Look, just so all of you understand, I decided that being a Doomie was unhealthful from a mental perspective. I mean, Michael Ruppert was the one who clued me in on the Oil Peak, via his movie Collapse. Then he repeatedly and confidently predicted Doom. When Doom did not show up and the World did not end, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

My suggestion to all of you, is allow for the possibility - even the most probable outcome - that the various forms of Doom that occupy your mind will not ever happen in your lifetime.

No, I'm not saying that you should stop prepping. In fact, changing your lifestyle to be less dependant upon fragile infrastructures is a good thing. Planning for the future is even better. Becoming self-sufficient is even empowering. Once all I owned fit into a backpack, and I never again felt that free.

Simply think about a future where Doom never happens, let the idea percolate, and come up with a plan to address that ever-more-likely possibility. That's all - just think of what you will do and how you will live.